Chen Mo took a breath.
He bent down ahead of everyone else and picked up the gun.
His movement was too natural.
So natural that it looked like he was just helping someone pick up an eraser they had dropped on the floor.
He didn't raise the weapon, nor did he check the magazine. He simply pinched the grip with two fingers, gave it a gentle twist, removed the magazine, and ejected the bullet from the chamber.
The entire process took less than two seconds.
Then he placed the empty gun into the arms of the teacher standing nearby.
The teacher held the gun with an expression that looked as if someone had just shoved a live snake into her hands.
Chen Mo flashed a bright, sunny smile.
"Teacher, this shouldn't count as a teaching supply, right?"
No one in the hallway laughed.
Everyone was looking at him.
The gaze of the tall guy in the black jacket shifted for the first time.
Barbara was looking at him too.
She had seen just how steady Chen Mo's hands were during those two seconds.
That was not the reaction a normal freshman should have when facing a firearm, and it looked even less like a homeless kid who had just been scooped up into a school by a street registration vehicle.
Ordinary people would freeze up upon seeing a gun.
People familiar with guns would become alert.
But Chen Mo's actions just now were more like dealing with a leaking fountain pen.
A hassle, dirty, but not something to be feared.
Chen Mo shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head, avoiding Barbara's gaze.
He was done for.
On his very first day of school, he seemed to have already played the persona of a "seemingly ordinary, poor Asian transfer student" into a "poor Asian transfer student suspected of having undergone secret agent training."
This was bad.
Very bad.
His original persona was supposed to be a handsome, tragic-yet-powerful guy.
A hot nerd or something.
...
At the same time, in the underground data room of Wayne Tower, Bruce Wayne looked at the surveillance footage of the school hallway, his fingertips resting on the console.
Alfred stood beside him, holding a freshly printed data report of the first day's operations.
Whichever school his colleague--who chronologically should be considered a child laborer--was attending was naturally the school Bruce Wayne focused on watching.
"Seventh Public Middle School in the East End. A total of seventeen brawls, six suspected drug deals, twelve instances of carrying knives, and one case of open firearm exposure were recorded this morning. The school attendance rate for the Foundation's project students is actually quite good, exceeding expectations by thirty-one percent."
The old butler paused, his tone remaining steady.
"From a certain perspective, Master Bruce, your educational initiative is highly successful. The children have indeed come to school; they just brought Gotham into the classroom with them along the way."
Bruce did not speak.
On the screen, Chen Mo handed the empty gun to the teacher, flashing a smile so clean it was almost glaring.
Bruce rewound the footage.
Removing the magazine, clearing the chamber, verifying the direction of the muzzle, handing it back to an adult.
No showing off, no hesitation, no excessive panic. The movements were practiced, yet in the very next second, he immediately stuffed himself back into that talkative, harmless, joking shell.
It could be confirmed one hundred percent that this was the one who liked to climb walls at night.
Bruce's gaze darkened.
"The gangs are testing the school."
Alfred looked toward him.
"Testing whom?"
"Everyone," Bruce said. "The teachers, the security, the Foundation's procedures, the students' reactions, and him."
He clicked open another segment of footage.
The boy in the grey cap was recording something at the end of the hallway. After the brawl ended, the tall guy in the black jacket didn't leave; instead, he looked toward Chen Mo.
There was no anger from being offended.
What was present was the interest that came after confirming the value of a prey.
"They've discovered there are fish in the new pond," Bruce said softly. "And one of them doesn't look much like a fish."
During the last class of the afternoon, the teacher had completely given up on lecturing.
She had everyone write an essay titled "My Future."
Chen Mo stared at the prompt and remained silent for a long time.
Putting this prompt in Gotham's East End was practically like asking a group of drowning people to write "My Love for the Ocean."
In the row ahead, Barbara had already begun writing.
She wrote quickly, her handwriting beautiful, her spine straight, as if she were forcibly carving out a small piece of order for herself amidst this chaos.
Chen Mo looked down at his own paper.
He thought about it and wrote down the first sentence.
"My future had better include a bed where I won't be dripped awake by a leaking roof."
After writing it, he felt this sentence lost too much face for Spider-Man, so he crossed it out.
The second sentence.
"My future had better not involve wits and brawn battles every day with the strangely shaped law-challengers by the roadside."
He stared at this sentence for a second and crossed it out too.
The third sentence.
"Capital comes into this world..."
Cross it out, cross it out quickly.
Even though Gotham constantly preached things like ideological independence and urged students to have unique insights.
But just because they call you unique, did you really think you were unique?
Chen Mo felt that his little self still couldn't shoulder the heavy responsibility of reforming the social system. It was better to play it safe and develop for a while first.
Finally, he wrote on the paper.
"For my future, I hope Gotham's schools won't have to write 'No Guns Allowed' at the entrance."
This sentence looked very grand and upright.
Chen Mo nodded with satisfaction.
Then he added a line.
"If they absolutely must write it, at least make the font a bit larger. Someone clearly didn't see it today."
When the bell rang for the end of class, the entire school building resembled a zoo with its cage doors opened.
Students rushed out of the classroom, and the hallway echoed with footsteps, curses, laughter, the sound of locker doors being kicked open, and the muffled thuds of some unlucky soul being stuffed into a locker.
Chen Mo slung his backpack over his shoulder. Just as he reached the door, Barbara called out to him.
"Chen Mo."
He turned back.
The red-haired girl stood in the shadows of the hallway where the setting sun couldn't reach, looking at him, her voice very soft.
"When you picked up that gun just now, weren't you afraid?"
Chen Mo put on a very natural smile.
"I was afraid, scared to death. I'm actually very cowardly; my legs go weak whenever I see a gun."
Barbara looked at his legs.
They were long and straight... ah, no.
Very steady.
So steady they looked welded to the ground.
Following her gaze, Chen Mo looked down at his own legs as well, and then earnestly tried to salvage the situation.
"This is a psychological leg-weakness, you can't tell from the outside."
Barbara was silent for two seconds.
"You're very strange."
"Thank you," Chen Mo said. "That sounds like a high-level compliment."
Barbara didn't press further.
She just gave him a look, as if placing this name into a separate mental folder.
Chen Mo waved at her, turned around, and walked toward the stairs.
He was halfway down when the back of his head tingled slightly again.
Down by the edge of the playground, the boy in the grey cap was talking to the tall guy in the black jacket. The two spoke in very low voices, and the distance was great, but Chen Mo's current senses were sharp enough to capture a few scattered words.
New guy.
No guardian.
Fast reactions.
Tonight.
East gate.
Chen Mo didn't stop walking.
He even hummed a couple of out-of-tune lines from a song, looking just like an ordinary student who had finally finished his first day of classes and was preparing to go home to feed his dog.
But his eyes had already turned cold.
The setting sun shone in from the end of the hallway, making the temporary student ID on his chest gleam.
Chen Mo, East End Seventh Public Middle School, Temporary ID Number CM-0719.
He glanced down at the card and suddenly let out a soft laugh.
Bruce Wayne had put him into school.
The school had delivered Gotham right to his face.
Excellent.
Tonight, he knew exactly where to start his patrol.